of new year, grief and everything in between

i remembered something that happened towards the end of 2011.
if i'm not mistaken, in december.
i was born and bred in perlis.
my fam moved to PD 5 years ago.
circa 1999-2006, there's this one old man (Pak Brahim) who used to sell ulam-ulaman as his way to make a living, used to stop by to our house in the evening, usually around 3 or 4.
and whoever was at the house at that time would make his fav iced milo.
he wouldn't settle for any other drink :)
always.
every single day except when we were away for hols and when we moved to PD.
he was old lah, around 50 ++ or 60++ then.

and one weekend in december when i went back to PD, mom told me he passed away.
he was murdered.
someone robbed him, and hit him in the head.
that poor old guy was robbed and murdered.
and the same words kept lingering in my head.
"robbed and murdered".
it didn't register at first. i had to ask mom many many times, "are u sure he is murdered? and someone robbed him?? like ROBBED, like threatened-him-and-stole-his-money rob?
mom said yes to everytime i asked the question.

i was devastated. big time. i just lost it. i cried and cried and cried and was sobbing like crazy thinking, "what did this old man ever do to deserve such horrible thing to happen to him??!!"
but mom assured me that it was his time to go and whatever and however way, it's his time.
turns out that a drug addict robbed him for money to buy drugs.
stupid, married with kids drug addict.
and how kantoi? cos he dropped hi IC on the scene, next to Pak Brahim's body.

Pak Brahim:
- maaaan he was strong for a man his age. he would walk from his house to Kangar town (10++km everyday, rain or shine), stopped by our house on his way back from town, saved us some of our fav ulam.

- his walk is like a catwalk. very graceful. full of energy.

- he passed away a single man. no wife, no children.

- he had a few relung of sawah padi. (in perlis, kampung people are considered rich when u have a lot of tanah/sawah padi.)

- we keep him in our prayers now.
this is when children are useful.
when u passed, there are children to continue praying for u.

Dear Pak Brahim, semoga roh tuan dicucuri rahmat oleh Allah swt, semoga kuburnya diterangi cahaya, dilapangkan, dijauhi dari seksa kubur dan api neraka.
semoga tuan ditempatkan di kalangan orang yang beriman dan para syuhada.
semoga tuan lebih tenang di sana. it was a great pleasure having u around back then.
Al-fatihah :')